Tuesday, June 14, 2011
Tomatoes?!
I was taking my usual Tuesday Market walkthrough when something red caught my eye. It was a tomato. Yup, I was just as surprised as you. I didn't get a chance to ask Ben (from Town Farm) how he has them so early but he was pretty busy. Probably because he had tomatoes. I assume he grew them in their new greenhouse and I can't wait to try them. I have some nice mozzarella and that geat basil from last night so once the tomato softens we are going to go caprese crazy. Hopefully the tomato "softens" by tomorrow, I'm not sure I can wait...
Monday, June 13, 2011
Basil and Blossoms
Sunday, June 12, 2011
RW Sunday Recap
Wow. After looking back on the posts for the week I realize that I'm a real complainer. I guess Restaurant Week is getting harder for me to rationalize. In my eyes, there are many different categories of restaurants and they all serve their purpose. When you think of going out to breakfast, your choices can range from greasy spoon to elegant. All are delicious and all are needed. I love a greasy spoon breakfast...once in a while. Everything is cooked on the same flattop, getting more and more seasoned with each serving. It's satisfying in a comforting and greasy sort of way. I also love an elegant breakfast; something about a nice glass of champagne with a hand-picked dungeness crab benedict is just beautiful and satisfying in a completely different way. In both cases I feel I get what I pay for. Those are the key words, "I get what I pay for." On a regular night we believe our customers leave saying "I got what I paid for." Restaurant Week twists this dynamic a bit. We so happen to be an "elegant" restaurant; our food is extremely time consuming to make, made from fresh and costly local ingredients plus it takes a large amount of manpower to prepare. Unfortunatly, this means the deal of Restaurant Week represents something different to us.
Restaurant Weeks have become a normalcy in major cities across the US and for good reason. They promote tourism, they spur new customers and they serve as a sort of customer appreciation. In most larger cities they also benefit some excellent charities. Having lived in some cities that have hosted some pretty amazing restaurant weeks, I can say I am a huge advocate. Unfortunately, I think that our RW has a few flaws and those flaws affect businesses like mine more so than others. I have a major case of "love-hate" with Northampton's Restaurant Week and here is why.
While some restaurants stand to gain a large profit from the publicity and influx in business, we use it more as a marketing opportunity and as a customer appreciation week. Many restaurants "lessen" their menus to make even more money during the week. We don't. Our mark-up (on both wine and food) is far, far below the normal mark-up for restaurants. Most restaurants run a food cost around 20%, ours is closer to 40%. That means that if restaurant X is serving a dish that costs them $3.00 they are charging you $15.00. We would only be charging $7.50. Sure our prices are higher than most, but the deal you are getting is far better in terms of quality. This works for us (and the customer) during a normal business day but on a week like this one, especially when we don't compromise our cuisine and have to staff well above normal, we are literally making pennies on the dollar. This is not to say that we don't simplify our menu. We have to in order to not lose money during the week and to allow our kitchen staff to serve three times our usual number of customers. Now fold that in with the heightened criticism we tend to take during this week by people who are coming in without the understanding they are getting a deal. Add in the repeat customers who know they are getting the best deal in town, the large number of regulars that just happen to come in and the tourists who had no idea that RW was going on and you might understand my angst.
We have tried swaying the RW board to understand our situation. We have tried to get them to change the date to a week that has far less tourists, like August. No dice. When we suggested separate price points, they listened and changed them to include the restaurants that are priced too low to take part in RW by being able to offer a "2 for 1" offer. We have asked them to raise the price, perhaps to $25 a head. This year they made a big stink about raising the price. They raised it 89 cents from $20.11 to $21. Hardly helpful to us, or anyone else.
There is nothing I love more than being balls to the wall busy and running a crazy restaurant. I get a high from it and everyone who works in the business will tell you the same. If everything goes right, all the staff flow together as one restaurant. I love that. The problem is that the high may not be enough anymore for RW. We didn't see enough new customers this year so the "marketing" aspect may not be there anymore. We definitely saw a large number of regulars, but we would rather run our own "customer appreciation week" during a week that has less tourists running around. While there is a chance that we may take part in RW next year, I don't think it is likely. Maybe the board will listen to our suggested changes, but it seems unlikely they will mess with something that works well for so many others. It was an awesome restaurant week, easily our best one yet. We had our rough nights, and we had our smooth ones. I hear it's good to go out on a high note...
Restaurant Weeks have become a normalcy in major cities across the US and for good reason. They promote tourism, they spur new customers and they serve as a sort of customer appreciation. In most larger cities they also benefit some excellent charities. Having lived in some cities that have hosted some pretty amazing restaurant weeks, I can say I am a huge advocate. Unfortunately, I think that our RW has a few flaws and those flaws affect businesses like mine more so than others. I have a major case of "love-hate" with Northampton's Restaurant Week and here is why.
While some restaurants stand to gain a large profit from the publicity and influx in business, we use it more as a marketing opportunity and as a customer appreciation week. Many restaurants "lessen" their menus to make even more money during the week. We don't. Our mark-up (on both wine and food) is far, far below the normal mark-up for restaurants. Most restaurants run a food cost around 20%, ours is closer to 40%. That means that if restaurant X is serving a dish that costs them $3.00 they are charging you $15.00. We would only be charging $7.50. Sure our prices are higher than most, but the deal you are getting is far better in terms of quality. This works for us (and the customer) during a normal business day but on a week like this one, especially when we don't compromise our cuisine and have to staff well above normal, we are literally making pennies on the dollar. This is not to say that we don't simplify our menu. We have to in order to not lose money during the week and to allow our kitchen staff to serve three times our usual number of customers. Now fold that in with the heightened criticism we tend to take during this week by people who are coming in without the understanding they are getting a deal. Add in the repeat customers who know they are getting the best deal in town, the large number of regulars that just happen to come in and the tourists who had no idea that RW was going on and you might understand my angst.
We have tried swaying the RW board to understand our situation. We have tried to get them to change the date to a week that has far less tourists, like August. No dice. When we suggested separate price points, they listened and changed them to include the restaurants that are priced too low to take part in RW by being able to offer a "2 for 1" offer. We have asked them to raise the price, perhaps to $25 a head. This year they made a big stink about raising the price. They raised it 89 cents from $20.11 to $21. Hardly helpful to us, or anyone else.
There is nothing I love more than being balls to the wall busy and running a crazy restaurant. I get a high from it and everyone who works in the business will tell you the same. If everything goes right, all the staff flow together as one restaurant. I love that. The problem is that the high may not be enough anymore for RW. We didn't see enough new customers this year so the "marketing" aspect may not be there anymore. We definitely saw a large number of regulars, but we would rather run our own "customer appreciation week" during a week that has less tourists running around. While there is a chance that we may take part in RW next year, I don't think it is likely. Maybe the board will listen to our suggested changes, but it seems unlikely they will mess with something that works well for so many others. It was an awesome restaurant week, easily our best one yet. We had our rough nights, and we had our smooth ones. I hear it's good to go out on a high note...
Saturday, June 11, 2011
RW 2011, Day 6
It's over, finally. I will talk more about everything in tomorrow's "Sunday Recap," right now I have to celebrate another successful RW with my staff and send off one of our servers for he is moving to Berkeley...
Friday, June 10, 2011
RW 2011, Day 5
Great night tonight. The mood is drastically different from last night making it much more fun to work. One more night lies ahead and then we give the restaurant and staff a day to rest. That means I'll have to mow the grass, damn...
Thursday, June 9, 2011
RW 2011, Day 4
Alright, today was the day that we have been hoping to do without. One of our first tables, maybe our even the first table, was livid that her beans were cold. It was a chilled fennel, orange and white bean salad and when the manager went to try and smooth things over, the lady went on a tirade about how they have eaten all over the world (and apparently have never eaten a cold bean before) so they know what is good. Then they proceeded to intentionally look away from the server and not respond when asked anything for the rest of their meal. During the bean incident, the staff looked over the dining room and everyone just looked melancholy. Everyone looked depressed, no one was talking to each other just staring somberly into space. I don't know if it was the lighting storm or the sticky heat but our night did not start well. A handful of food returned to the kitchen unpleasantly picked apart. Two ducks were too rare for the customers liking and one salmon was "completely raw." Much like everything else in life, there is a polite way to send back a dish and a way that is sure to get the entire restaurant staff (and sometimes tables next to you) not too like you. If you do not like the way something is cooked by all means you should send it back, you are paying good money for it...but please don't tell the server that the fish is completely raw when it isn't, just ask if they can have the kitchen cook it more to your liking.
it is hard to have customers who only come into your restaurant once a year (during restaurant week) and feel the need to offer their criticism on anything and everything...especially when they are receiving three-courses for less than the price of our standard entrees. Thankfully the mood lightened by the end of the night and people were very happy. The last three RWs have been full of these types of days and we have been fortunate so far that this has been the only one, hopefully the RW gods will look down on us for the rest of the week...
it is hard to have customers who only come into your restaurant once a year (during restaurant week) and feel the need to offer their criticism on anything and everything...especially when they are receiving three-courses for less than the price of our standard entrees. Thankfully the mood lightened by the end of the night and people were very happy. The last three RWs have been full of these types of days and we have been fortunate so far that this has been the only one, hopefully the RW gods will look down on us for the rest of the week...
Wednesday, June 8, 2011
RW 2011, Day 3
We're halfway there. Tonight we served 100 people, exact same number as last night but $1000 dollars less in sales. That is a little hard swallow when you are basically giving dinner away. As long as people are happy and first-time customers come back it is worth it. At least that is what I tell myself...
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